A “yes, but” like this, but instead all the countries where servers get a (relatively) decent wage vs America where tipping is mandatory.
American tipping culture is so arbitrary though. You tip your taxi driver but not your bus driver. You tip at a coffee shop but not at a fast food shop. Your hairdresser gets a tip but not the people looking after your children.
Have you been in fast food recently? Half those places are asking for tips now
I haven’t lived in the US for a few decades now, so I might definitely be off for some!
Lemmy discovers Commodity Fetishism
Happy cake day
Ya filthy animal
Ty
First off, fuck this artist for implying that working in the service industry is not difficult nor requires skill.
Second, I make a very good living as a tipped worker in the service industry. There’s no way in hell that a small business owner could afford to pay a wage even close to what I make in tips.
There is an established system in place in certain industries the US and it works. Otherwise people wouldn’t do those jobs.
That being said, I don’t think we should be adding that system to other jobs. Everyone knows to tip your bartender. Not everyone is going to know that now you have to tip your supermarket cashier just for them make a decent wage.
As someone who lived off of tips for a a couple decades, I agree with all of this despite the down votes. It’s a skill. The people down voting would be flabbergasted by how hard the job is working in a nice, busy place.
Thank you! I think most people commenting here don’t understand how the industry works as a whole.
None of the down votes are for the opinion that the service industry requires skill. They are because tipping culture is anti-consumer, anti-worker, predatory and just generally terrible, yet the comment is advocating for it because apparently it works for them personally.
There’s no way in hell that a small business owner could afford to pay a wage even close to what I make in tips.
Sure they could. All they’d have to do is set the prices to include what would’ve been your tip.
Even if they could there is no bar in the world that is going to pay its staff $50/hr.
Why not? That’s what you’re saying it costs. What’s the difference if it’s listed on the menu instead of hidden behind some obscure social contract?
Yeah, customers are literally already paying that amount.
People like this artist are why if I were ever elected President I would mandate 2 years of retail service for the entire population. They simply do not understand the stress of dealing with people in a customer-facing role in a service industry.
There was a study on job stress done a number of years ago now (I wanna say in the 2018-2020 range) by psychologists on determining the most stressful jobs, and much of the top of the list is what you would expect: firefighters, EMTs, non-active duty military, EOD technician, active duty military, etc. But the top 3 on the list, above everything else including jobs that have life or death situations, were all customer service related - baristas, customer support techs, wait staff, that sort of thing.
And the reason for this ranking was simple: jobs like bomb defusal, active duty soldiers, and firefighters are incredibly high stress but with long periods of little to no stress in between. A soldier is only on duty a few months out of the year, and in active combat for a small portion of that time. They have tons of low stress time to allow them to destress and heal from the time they spend fighting for their lives. Meanwhile, your average wait staff is in a medium to high stress environment of having to handle the abusive general public every day of the week, day in and day out. They have very little time to recover from a consistently stressful environment that only mounts higher and higher as the years go on.
As somebody who worked a job for 10 years that could basically be described as all 3 of the jobs in this comic rolled into 1 (I worked at a fish market), if there’s one group of people that I will bend over backwards to help have an easy time, it’s the kid at the grocery store, the cashier at Walmart, and the waitress at the restaurant. They don’t get paid anywhere near enough to deal with the shit that they do.
i would also add that what makes customer-facing jobs so stressful is that you cannot know the outcome. some people behave like assholes, demand to see the manager, then tell them that you did a bad job, and there’s nothing that you can do about it.
if you’re working as a bomb defuser, you either pull the right wire or you don’t. it’s simple laws of physics. you follow them, and that’s it. when you’re working with people, however, there are no rules. that’s what people don’t get. people seem to think that well, working with other people is just natural. however what makes it so stressful is that there are no rules. no matter what you do, you can always get shit on. that possibility drags on your brain and eats a lot of your energy.
The service I got was slow. I come here all the time, so i should know how things should be around here. My waiter sucks, I demand that he be fired.
[Paraphrased, but this is actual feedback I got the day before mothers day, when our dishwasher was broken. And yes, he stiffed me, because of course]
I’ve also had a father tell his children that “tipping is optional and they should be happy with 5%” after I spent an hour and a half busting ass for his family’s ridiculous requests. After taxes and tip out 5% can literally be less than zero into your waiter’s pocket, fwiw.
Y’all suck. I assume anyone I see bitching about waitstaff getting tips, or implying they dont tip, is an asshole, because IME those are the complaints of an asshole. Tipping culture in general is a whole other topic that there can be reasoned and nuanced discussions about, but if your take is “tipping sucks and I don’t have to,” then you are willingly taking advantage of a system that denies people of the fruits of their labor.
I worked half a decade in customer service, between restaurants and retail. I agree with the artist. just pay the fucking staff wages like every other service job, servers aren’t more special than any other service job.
I mean, I agree with you, but the comic comes off as complaining about wait staff “demanding” tips for doing their job when the other jobs in it don’t despite the fact that the waiters get paid a fraction of what the others do and are expected to make up the difference in tips.
It comes off as complaining about the workers being greedy and not the system that abuses them, and that’s what I was responding to. It’s the kind of opinion frequently held by people who act like “unskilled labor” is a real thing.
wait staff make the same minimum wage here yet expect tips
Oh wow, they make $7.25/hour?!? Well shit, never mind then.
And here they make $2.75
To me the issue seems to be that they are blaming the server for asking tips and not the restaurant for not providing a liveable wage to their employees.
2 year mandated retail service so people respect the job more isn’t the fix, though it might indirectly cause change, provide a real wage if lawmakers and their kids where subjected to it.
To me the issue seems to be that they are blaming the server for asking tips and not the restaurant for not providing a liveable wage to their employees.
Yes, that’s my entire issue with this comic. It seems like they’re upset about wait staff “demanding” tips for just doing their job, when the real issue is that restaurants don’t pay their servers what their job is actually worth. It’s often an opinion of people who look down on “unskilled labor” like service industry employees. Fun anecdote: airplane mechanics were considered “unskilled labor” throughout WW2 and into the early Cold War, when the profession was suddenly rebranded as “skilled labor” due to a pressing need for aircraft mechanics with the rising demand from fighter jets and airliners and a lack of people entering the field. There’s no such thing as “unskilled labor,” just undervalued work.
And my second bit that I always make about the 2 years retail service is that it would either destroy the country or make it a nicer place where people respect each other more, and at this point I don’t know which is better.
Someones never worked in a restaurant before
*in a country that has legislated tipping as the approved method of underpaying employees
So speaking on somethibg about which they have no experience
Everyone in this are a worker, the guy we don’t see in this comic (edge fund, financiers and owner) are the real problem and this comic artist seems hell bent to hide this
I have spoke to owners complaining that they want to make service charges (tips) mandatory, then cry that they have to pay tax on it if they do that. “But can we just change the text instead?” - No.
Servers are just sales people. Their pay is commonly not from wages when in corporate world built up by commissions. Tips are effectively commissions but rather than an agreed upon amount from the employer it’s with the buyer. I hate both equally.
Sales commissions are still paid for directly by the business. Why do restaurants not have to pay their “sales people” directly?
Not always. There are sales jobs that are 100% commission, but I’m the same way they do have to ensure you are paid a minimum. The person making the exchange is arbitrary.
The person making the exchange is arbitrary.
No, it’s really not arbitrary. That’s how commission works, it’s paid to you by your employer, not the customer directly.
It’s not a good analogy.
No sales person was ever paid directly by the business’ customer. It’s always paid from the company’s account.
Yes and this was stated in my initial message. Thanks for reiterating?
Ok, If I squint really hard I can kind of see where you were trying to say that. Let’s just consider my comments to be a clarification rather than a correction.
Tips were introduced because employers refused to pay their newly freed slaves.
I dislike tips as much as probably any of us here. I have worked for tips, and distinctly remember how much I wished I could just make a consistent amount that basically came to the average even at a loss of what I was making with them. There were tipped jobs I was working that I made well over some of my first jobs in software engineering even when I worked at fine dining. I still wanted that stability at a loss. Now it’s been a few years removed, but my sentiment remains the same. I’m not saying they should be paid $15/hr or something here but this holds for any job; any person should be able to pay the median low end apartment without gov assistance, should be able to save or invest, should be able to afford food, and a second bedroom for a child with only a single full time job. I want that amount as the low bar even if it’s through the form of welfare but they should still be able to invest in their futures to some degree. This all of course assuming they are semi competent with finances, but I’m not talking high level.
That made as the assumption yes fuck tip systems and fuck commissions. Why am I including commissions when it’s the employer that pays unlike tips? Because of the reason these two are kinda similar both of these jobs incentivize the individual to perform better for higher pay. In theory and practice when averaged together this holds true. It benefits both the company and the individual; at least on paper. This does also leave room to exploit and abuse. Usually this is seen with people in sales who look out for themselves only and will exploit the system even if it costs their peers. For example insurance sales in the US they get some commission or deal as long as the deal is sold. It doesn’t matter if that feature they sold it on was non existent or years in the future they made that sale and get the perk of commission at least for a while until they get canned when the customer realizes what happened. Serving tables isn’t exactly like this but there are things an individual can be rewarded for that may hurt others if they are unwilling to share certain burdens because it lowers their bottom line like idk filling soy sauce containers after hours. They should be getting paid some higher rate of course but that rate is often much lower than what they make with tips so they may not want to do it.
So I do see a practical reason for tips and commission, but I feel they both are bad for different reasons and should not be expected.
Oh, we’re pitting the working class against each other today are we?
Everyone in this panel is underpaid. No change happens blaming one worker against the other. We’re all under the boot
Remember to tip your landlord
There’s these new payday loan scam apps they call earned income advances or some bullshit like that where they take the loan amount and fees out of your next paycheck directly.
These asswipes charging what amounts to like 500% APR have the fucking audacity to ask for tips.
And say thank you.
Yes, but in the US servers get paid much less than minimum wage with the presumption that tips will make up the difference.
Businesses are supposed to make up any difference between what servers fail to earn as tips up to minimum wage, but:
- It gives businesses an opportunity to fail to do this,
- It means that minimum wage is what some servers effectively get, and
- It effectively means the amount of tips servers get per hour is lessened by the difference between their hourly pay and the minimum wage rate; it’s a way for businesses to reach into server tips and get some of it for themselves.
IDK how common it is but in the sushi restaurant I worked at the server and the chef split the tip but you also had more than one chef, not that it changes the point of the comic much.
Country dependant. Some places it’s highly common some with up to 50/50 split, where I am 2% pay out to the kitchen is typical / required, other places it is illegal as management to even ask the server to split tips.
I’ve worked as a chef many places.
All of the people in that comic get paid for their labor. The server doesn’t.
The Server gets paid exactly the price they agreed to when they took the job
This excuse for worker exploitation has always baffled me. 1. The contract was signed under duress: “Take this shitty job or continue to be unemployed.” Consent made under duress is not consent. 2. It was agreed to under an extreme power asymmetry: If you refuse the job, your family will have to go hungry, but the company will easily find some other desperate soul to fill the position. 3. I haven’t even begun to touch on all the class, racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination that workers face.
There’s nothing even close to meaningful or fair negotiation under such conditions.
The threat of going hungry is in the vast majority of negotiations. And if you’re working all day, and go hungry anyways - does it really matter?
But clearly that isn’t happening.
You’ve have the vast majority front of house who would never do anything else because **it does in fact pay well **. Very well
Ahh, they agreed to it! Perfectly acceptable then
Well if they all said “I’m not working for that shit wage” or they joined a union, did literally anything at all. NMaybe they would get paid more. Instead they do nothing, and bitch
Nevermind that Servers make more money than every single person in the supply chain. I don’t understand why everyone feels so bad for them. Ask any of them if they would rather work back of the house. Forget about logistics, or in agriculture?
Source: I was a server for almost a decade.
Nevermind that Servers make more money than every single person in the supply chain.
FYI, the restaurant owner is in that same supply chain. So no.
Also, I think commercial fishermen make decent money in the US.
Yes let’s also include the CEO of Longhorn Steakhouse in that supply chain. Or better. Let’s compare the server to Mr. Warren Strawman Buffett since he owns shares in Darden Restaurants Inc. “They’re all part of the chain”
Commercial Fishermen make ~ $15/hour.
Any server worth their salt makes more than $15/hour after tips. The mean is $17/hour and that’s assuming the US government knows about all of their tips - they don’t.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes353031.htm
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/farming-fishing-and-forestry/fishers-and-related-fishing-workers.htm
The fact is they do make more than the cook in the back, and they often make more than management.
Everywhere in the world the restaurant pays the server for their labor, in the US they make the customer do it and guilt them of they don’t.
yes, but they all get paid way below the value of their labour.
Damn everywhere in the world the server works for free except in USA they get tips for salary. Why do they even work as servers in the rest of the world without tips for paid labor? Are they retarded?
They’re also required to be paid minimum wage in the US by the restaurant if tips don’t cover it
Minimum wage being below poverty in the US is, of course, a separate issue
It’s required, but ask any servers you know how often that actually happens. Last restaurant my friend worked at would carry over tips from previous days in their books so it’d look like they made exactly 7.25 an hour every time. Only reason they got caught is because they always made it exactly 7.25 an hour on those days.
They got a meager fine and were told to pay the money back. They filled for bankruptcy rather than pay out like $4000 in back pay. If you or I had stolen $4000, we’d be in prison. A business does it and it’s a slap on the wrist and a quick bankruptcy and reopening under a new name
The servers I know all end up with way more than minimum wage, but I completely agree any restaurants getting away with that should have to pay at least 10x the stolen wages, and all court fees, plus a fine that is a percentage of their revenue
In a lot of the US, service workers are exploited similarly to how overtime labor goes without compensation.
Say if someone works 12 hours in a shift, but remains at or under 40 hours for the week, they don’t get any OT. It only kicks in after 40 hours.
The same goes for a server working full time. Without even needing to cook the books, a server could work a few $40 weekday shifts then one busy $300 weekend shift. Rather than being bumped up to minimum for the weekday shifts, the weekend shift is counted against their overall pay and they get nothing. The weekday shifts eat the tips from the weekend shift.
All perfectly legal.
they must be retarded if they’re working for free as slaves when they clearly could be working for tips.
dude, would you use a different word please? i have had a rough past with it. you usually make good points and i like upvoting you
So pay the server then!
I agree. Some US states do just that.
Though for this comic I’m just pointing out how the server is being singled out and shamed without the context of how their labor is compensated in comparison to everyone else in the comic.
It’s one of the few jobs in which an untrained and not especially strong person can make good money right off the bat without exposing themselves to extremely dangerous conditions.
I worked with a bunch of 40-70 year old women without many qualifications to put on a resume who earned decent money (they were often homeowners who paid for their kids to go to college). I don’t know of many industries where that is the case.
It’s very easy for an employer to exploit tipped workers in places with a difference, but I don’t know if getting rid of the tipping culture would make anything better. Restaurants constantly take advantage of their employees, whether they’re tipped or not, and if menu prices go up, that increase in revenue is not going to just be distributed among the employees. My guess based on how restaurant owners treat their employees is that prices would be raised by 15-20%, servers would be bumped up to minimum wage or just above it, and the rest would be pocketed by the owners.
In that scenario, customers are paying just as much as before, but now it’s mandatory, while servers are poorer (as are kitchen, dish, and bar employees who used to get tipped out [in some restaurants, each server gives 5-20% of their earned tips to various other sectors of the restaurant*]), and restaurant owners are richer. I don’t see how that’s a better situation than the one we have today. It’s definitely less hassle for consumers and it’s fairer in the sense that now nobody makes good money (except of course the owners), but I don’t think it’s an improvement that would stand alone.
If we were to improve the whole system for workers in general, I’d want to get rid of tipping, but not until then.
- I worked somewhere where the servers each tipped 20% to dish and kitchen (total, so if there were eight people in the kitchen, they each got 2.5% from each of the servers), and the employers used that as justification for paying everyone in the back as a tipped employee. The kitchen begged the front of house not to strike, because they were working quasi under the table and didn’t want to lose even a really shitty job. Just a fun anecdote about restaurant exploitation.
we can’t possibly do this, it will make everything worse says only country that does this
From my original comment:
If we were to improve the whole system for workers in general, I’d want to get rid of tipping, but not until then.
I now live in Germany and people with little training, strength, or desire to risk their health are able to support themselves at all types of jobs, plus they’re able to gain qualifications in their chosen field if they want, to further increase their wages. That just requires reworking the whole system.
The US absolutely could do that, but do you think they’re going to?
I dislike this cartoon because of the way that the server is pointing angrily at the tip box. In reality, the servers are also victims of tipping culture. They deserve consistent and fair wages.
Sure, but there are already news reports of servers complaining that all the people visiting aren’t tipping for the World Cup. Trying to call it “our culture”. Sure they should be paid normally, but, that’s also something that’s been said for at least the last 2 decades (and probably far longer). If they (servers) are going to keep pushing for tips, businesses keep pushing for tips, and people keep tipping…
That will only happen when we stop tipping
No, if you stop tipping the servers just get paid less and the owners feel nothing for not paying them a fair wage. If you really want to make a change, don’t eat out any place that makes you tip, if you have ever seen a tip jar or a tip screen, don’t go there. That is how you vote with your wallet, you don’t make the workers subsidize your food and not tip.
I can choose to not eat somewhere and make a statement, or i can choose to eat someone and make a statement and get subsidies for doing so.
Which do you think I’ll choose?
That will only happen when we stop tipping
Don’t tip, but also don’t think your not tipping is going to change anything except that the people who work as servers who might have liked now think you are an a-hole. I am sure you don’t care about this either, also fine, you don’t have to care about any other person, place or thing, the world will go on.
And you can keep the system in place by being a part is it, and knowing your tip helped an underpaid worker for that day, while many fail to make a living wage and employers continue to profit. At least you feel better for that day.
No. It will happen when you stop going to restaurants that underpay their workers. Patronizing those establishments and not tipping is just punishing the worker while rewarding the business. Business owners will not change unless you hit them in the wallet.
I agree it would suck for the workers in the mean time, but I think the labour market would adapt pretty quickly if servers actually started making $3/hour. No one would want to be a server and restaurants would be forced to pay competitively if they expect to hire anyone.
I think stopping patronizing those restaurants altogether doesn’t send any clear message about why it’s happening. Maybe combined with some large-scale public campaign, but on its own it wouldn’t achieve too much.
They could skip all of the “quit en masse to force an entire industry to change” (which would never happen, by the way, as many tipped workers in the US will tell you that they want it to be like that), and just unionize instead.
Maybe then it could be done without putting millions of people out of work for an unknown period of time.
Well, they would be making the legal minimum wage in their area since their tipped wage does not meet or exceed minimum wage per hours worked. Still not a liveable wage, especially considering the amount of unclocked labor that occurs in the food service industry.
Restaurants that do not provide table service (such as fast casual chains) do not rely on tipped workers, but I am not sure those workers do any better than workers who live on tips.
Correct, and that’s the rub. Tipped workers don’t want to change the system, because by and large they are far better off with tips than simply a minimum wage (or even prevailing minimum wage for an area). So realistically the only way to end it is to get rid of tipped wages in general, raise the minimum wage, and for people to stop going to places that ask for tips to pay for their workers.
In everywhere but USA, yes.
In the USA - No, that will just make servers go hungry.
The fix is to change tax law. The reason tipping is so big a deal there is that tax law is FUCKED, servers are taxed as if they were tipped, regardless of whether or not they were. Literally no other country does this.
Servers are no longer taxed on their first $25k in tips.
That is the reason Tips won’t disappear.
If Tips were taxed like any other income then there would be less demand and more likely to be included in the wage…
The fix is to raise the minimum wage. Servers are exempt from most minimum wage laws because the restaurant lobby has carved out that exemption, in the assumption that tips will make up the difference.
No one is forced to work as a server. If the job can’t pay a living wage, don’t take it.
Wow! It’s just that easy? You’re going to solve all the world’s problems!
No one is forced to work picking fruit/mopping floors/trading their life in a mine, if the job can’t pay a living wage, don’t take it?
Can you explain what motivates people to work horrible, underpaid, poverty jobs? I’m confused because I thought people didn’t like working some jobs, were not paid enough to live working some jobs, and yet had to work them anyway or they would die. I was under the understanding that this has been going on for untold generations.
Why do they do this if they can just “don’t take” those jobs? Maybe you can fix this horrible situation we’ve all be confused about for centuries?🥰
Can’t speak for the “no other country” but Canada does this.
Yeah I already said USA, you didn’t need to specify a subregion
America’s Hat
It won’t make the server go hungry. It will force them to look for a different job.
So then nobody wants to serve anymore and restaurants will be forced to fix the broken system.
No tipping anywhere, especially in the US.
Yes, finding a new job is notoriously incredibly easy, and homelessness rates are going down!
Oh wait, no, the exact opposite is true.
It won’t make the server go hungry. It will force them to look for a different job.
And what do they eat in the meantime?
Tipped workers represent 5 million+ workers in the US. While yes, ending tipping is important, probably better ways like raising minimum wages and getting rid of ‘tipped wages’ would work to end tipping rather than just telling 5 million people they need to find different work.
But if you talk to the majority of tipped workers, they don’t want to change the system, which is likely a far larger hurdle compared to diner preferences.
Sure, that would be better for everyone. But it is also fiction that will never come true. So … back to stop tipping for me
I mean, it’s not fiction if we all want things to change. I don’t think I will stop tipping those who can’t afford to not be tipped, but you do you. I’d say the better solution for someone like yourself is to stop going to those places to begin with if you are that against ‘tipping’.
It also depicts servers as doing some decadent super easy job when those people work their asses off. I dislike tipping culture, but I factor it into the cost of a night out and make sure someone gets paid fairly from my side if they’re doing a great job and making sure I have everything I need while I sit and enjoy my meal and conversation.
The whole system needs an overhaul, but until that happens, I’m on the side of the working people that make my night out easy and pleasant.
This comic was not made by someone experienced what its like to work at Applebee’s in Oklahoma before, that is for sure.
I used to be a line cook. I’ll take staying in the kitchen being grumpy over having to serve and fake smile at asshole customers all day
every step is about 30% of the total cost so far
so, it might cost $1 to get the equipment for getting fish out of the sea (buying nets, buying ships, etc.)
- then, it costs 30c to pay labor to get the fish out of the sea, making $1.30 in total
- 30% of that is 39c for packaging so it makes $1.69 in total
- then 30% extra for processing it (cooking) which is 50c, makes $2.19 in total
- the waiter wants 30% tip so that’s 66c making a total of $2.85
every step seems to get more expensive than the one before it
Well yeah, because the waiter is getting a tip based on a percentage of the cost of all the work done before him.
